CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
HOW A CERTAIN MAN WAS HANGED AT TYBURN.
Months passed, and the Irish maiden became one of Master Walgrave'sordinary household. And she and my Jeannette were as sisters.
It was not without a struggle that my master and mistress were prevailedupon to open their home to the fair stranger. At first, my master,being sorely wroth with the miscarriage of my errand to his Grace, vowedso roundly that he would turn both me and my papist wench--so he calledher--out of doors, that it seemed likely there would be broken heads aswell as hearts over this business. For it was hard to keep my tempereven with Jeannette's step-father, when he talked like that.
But I deemed it wise to leave the management of the matter to daintierhands than mine; and when Jeannette, clinging to her father's knees,besought him with tears at least to let the maiden stay a few days tillshe could find a shelter, he surlily yielded so much, provided shestayed in a chamber by herself, and brought not her papist blasphemywithin earshot of any in the house. Then, when a day after, mymistress, being won over by her sweet daughter, saw how ill and withalhow gentle the maiden was, it was even permitted her to walk in thegarden and exchange civilities with the two ladies of the house. Soonafter, yet another event served to put my master in humour. For amessage came from his Grace's secretary permitting the printing of thebook. And that evening, as I observed, Master Walgrave evencondescended to speak to the maiden himself. And last of all, when shetold him prettily that she was rich enough to recompense him for hishospitality, and begged him take charge of her purse so long as shelodged with him, he had no more to say, but let her go in and out as shepleased, pledging her only to speak not a word of her religion toJeannette or anyone else in his house.
It was not much I saw of her; for, despite her liberty, she neverstrayed beyond the little garden, and many a day kept close to herchamber. Yet often I heard of her from Jeannette, and now and again sheherself enquired for me, and asked me to walk with her.
I soon learned what little she had to tell of her own adventures. Afterleaving Dunluce she had been kept close prisoner in Toome Castle by herold step-dame, despite her father's protest, who had no more voice inhis own house than a dog and was not sorry to escape from it toCastleroe. The English soldier who had been sent to guard her was notadmitted within the walls, but paced--faithful fellow--outside, withinsight of her window, the only reminder she had of the happiness she hadlost. Presently rumours came that Ludar had been slain in battle; andafter a while Captain Merriman came on a visit. Happily, this time, hereturned not to the violence with which he had persecuted her atCastleroe, but tried to win her by civilities which were scarcely lessloathsome to her than his old rudenesses. Amongst other things, he toldher Ludar had cursed her for being his brother's murderess; and that hebelieved it was true, as had been reported, that the young McDonnell wasslain. And two days after, to confirm this, an officer came to theCastle with news that Ludar's head was set on a pole above the gate atthe Bridge of Dublin.
After that, the maiden said, she wished no longer to live. For she knewnot what to believe; or how much was a wicked plot to deceive her intoyielding to the Captain. Presently her father came home, and she beggedhim on her knees to send her to England. He consented; but when my Ladyheard of it, she took the whim to go to Court too, and invited theCaptain to be their escort. So nothing was gained by that move--ornothing would have been gained, had not Providence directed that CaptainMerriman and my Lady should grievously fall out on the journey aboutsome act of disrespect to herself, such as the neglecting to see herlifted to her horse before he assisted the maiden. Whatever the causewas, it saved the maiden much trouble during the journey; for theCaptain was kept thereby at arm's length and never permitted to comenear. And, to add to her comfort, she had espied among the men whoformed the escort the same English fellow who had escorted her fromDunluce to Toome, and who, it was clear, was still true to his trust.
But as they neared London, my Lady, feeling in need of some little pompto make good her entry, took the Captain back once more into favour; andwith that the maiden's troubles began again. For the Captain bargained,as a price of his good-will, that he should wed the maiden so soon asthey reached town. To this my Lady seemed to consent, and told herstep-daughter, sternly enough, to prepare herself for what was no longerto be avoided.
Thus made desperate, on a certain morning about a day's ride fromLondon, the maiden made some pretence of her saddle being broken, andbeckoned to the English fellow to come and attend to it. But instead ofhim, for his head was turned, came Tom Price the Captain's sergeant.And while he made good the straps she took heart of grace and beggedhim, for pity's sake, help her, and slipped into his hand some goldpieces. And he, having no liking to see his master married and himself,perhaps, cast out of service, willingly offered to help her when thetime came. So she bade him be ready with a horse at midnight of thevery day they reached London, and to bring the other English fellow, ifneeds be, also.
The rest of the story I knew. How Tom Price had carried her to her oldnunnery school at Canterbury; and how the fellow Gedge (though Tom hadno mind to share the reward with him), discovered what was afoot andwent to Canterbury too. And how Peter Stoupe, having heard the secretfrom the drunken sergeant, had found out the Captain, and sold the sameto him; and, finally, after getting the honest watchdog out of the way,how, disguised as priests, those two villains had invaded the conventand, but for the Providence which took me thither, might have had heracross seas and at their mercy long since.
"So, my good Humphrey," said the maiden, "once more I owe you more thanmy life. I cannot repay you, but Heaven will. Nay it is doing soalready, in giving you this sweetest little Jeannette to love you."
And then, as her eyes grew dim, and her bosom heaved, I could guesswhither her thoughts had flown, and how my happy lot contrasted with herown.
I had told her all I knew of Ludar, up to the time of the poet's letter.But for a long time I durst not tell her of his visit to my master'shouse that evening while I was at Canterbury. At last, however, Isummoned up courage, with Jeannette's help, to tell her that; and it waspitiful to see how it moved her.
"Talk of it no more," said she. "He will not return; or if he does, thesight of me--to whom he owes all these troubles, who tempted him todesert his duty and ruined his life--will drive him hence. Jeannette,"said she, taking my little mistress' hand in hers, "why must one livewhen it would be so happy to die?"
"Maiden," said Jeannette, boldly, "you do wrong to talk so, and I shalllove you less if you say it again. Of course he will come, and ofcourse he loves you, and of course all will be happy yet. Is the Godyou pray to less kind and strong than ours?"
The maiden said nothing, but her cheeks flushed as she liftedJeannette's little hand to her lips. And after that we seldom spoketogether of Ludar. Yet he was in all our thoughts.
As for me, I wandered about the town night by night for many a week,hoping to hear of him. But never a word could I hear. And in timepeople ceased even to talk of the Scotch Queen and all the troubloustimes which had ended at her death. And a leaden weight was falling onmy heart, as I wondered if I was never again to hold my friend's hand inmine; when one day I chanced to stumble on news of him in the strangestway.
It was near midsummer that a journeyman came urgently one day to mymaster from Master Barker's, her Majesty's printer, desiring his aid inthe setting up in type of certain matter which was to be printedforthwith, but which Master Barker (being crowded with other work), mustneeds hire out to be done. My master, who desired by all means to keepthe good graces of the Queen's printer, undertook to give the help askedfor, and handed to me the paper to put in type. I opened it, and foundit headed thus:--"A List of Persons who in these late grievous timeshave suffered punishment for treasonable acts against the state andperson of her Most Gracious Majesty. To wit--"
Then followed a goodly list of names of persons suffering death in theill cause; hea
ded by that of the Scotch Queen herself. Afterwards camethe names of certain persons imprisoned, together with a note of theplace where each was imprisoned, and the term of his punishment.
Amongst these, towards the end, was a line which made my blood suddenlyrun cold, and set the stick a trembling in my hand. It ran thus:--
"_One, Ludar, an Irishman, who carried certain Letters abroad. He liethin ye Tower of London, waiting Her Majesty's pleasure_."
The summer passed, and each week the maiden's cheek grew paler. She hadsaid little when Jeannette showed her the name on the proof which I hadkept. But she quietly took the paper and hid it in her bosom, and for aday kept herself to her chamber.
After that she rarely mentioned Ludar's name, and when we spoke of himto her, she always changed the talk to something else. Once or twice,in the late summer evenings, I took her and Jeannette to row on theriver. And on each occasion we dropped on the tide to below LondonBridge, where standing out in the gloom of twilight we could see thegreat frowning Tower which held still, as we hoped, a life dear to usall.
But as the weeks sped by, with one consent we let go even that hope; andon the last evening, when we rowed, the maiden said--
"Humphrey, row us some other way to-night."
And as she spoke, her face looked to me scarcely less white than theshivering moonbeams on the water.
About the middle of the autumn, I met Will Peake one day, who told methat there had been of late not a few men hanged at Tyburn andelsewhere; some for recent treasons, and others whose sentence had beenoverhanging ever since the conspiracies concerning the Scotch Queen.
When I pressed him closer, he said he had been present at one hanging atTyburn, but that was of a debaser of coins. But a friend of his, saidhe, had seen four traitors hanged, drawn, and quartered; of whom he knewthe names of three. But the other, thought to be a Scotchman orIrishman, no one knew his name.
I begged Will to take me to his friend that I might hear more, andplainly told him my reason. Whereat he drew a very long face, and saidhe thought better of me than to consort with such vile carrion as thesetraitors to her Majesty. Nevertheless he took me to his friend to hearwhat he had to say.
His friend sickened me with a long story of the horrible death of thesemen, whereby he thought to entertain me as he had entertained not a fewother idle fellows during the past month.
"Oh," said he, "pity on us you saw not the fourth rogue dangle--behanged to him that he had no name! I tell you, Master Dexter, it almostmade me creep to see all they did to make an end of him. First ofall--"
"Hold thy peace, beast!" roared I. "Keep it to thyself. But tell me,what was he like?"
"If I be a beast," said he, mightily offended, "thou art like to hearthat better from anyone else."
"Your pardon," said I, "but my imagination is quick, and your horriblestory well-nigh made me ill."
He took this as a mighty compliment, and smoothed down forthwith.
"Ay, ay," said he, "some stomachs are squeamish, but I thought you oneof the stout ones. This fourth fellow, say you? Marry, by the build ofhim he might be a brother of yours, for his feet dangled a foot nearerthe ground than the others; and when it came to--"
"Was he dark or fair?" I asked hurriedly, frightened lest he shouldturn again to his horrible relation.
"Why, he had a shock of hair as like straw for colour as anything I saw.I tell you no man knew his name. Some said he was a Highlander. Andhe looked it, though I never saw one. But a wilder, more bold-face,shameless villain I ne'er set eyes on. Ay, and he kept it up to theend, too; after the hanging and when they--"
"Have done!" cried I, angrily, "no more of that. But tell me one lastthing. Said he anything, before he died?"
"Never a word. But there was a curl on his lip as if it were we who hadthe rope round our necks and not he; and when the chaplain came toexhort him, he swung round on his heel and pulls me out his papistcrucifix and kisses it before all the people. What think you of thatfor a stubborn dog? The others died with their tails betwixt theirlegs, I tell you; but this notable ruffler, from the moment he swungaloft to the moment--"
I could stand him no more, and left him telling his horrible story tothe church steeple; while I crawled back, scarce daring to think, to mymaster's house, I told this news neither to Jeannette nor the maiden.For it might be false, as former panics had been. And if it were notfalse, what good could it do to break that gentle heart a day soonerthan Heaven ordained?
So the year ended miserably, in doubt and gloomy foreboding; andJeannette and I, as we looked at the maiden's white cheek and sufferingbrow, dare scarcely claim as our own the happiness which came of thelove that grew daily betwixt us.
Now, I grieve to say that early in the new year, my master, who had oflate seemed docile and obedient to the orders of the worshipful theStationers' Company, fell once more into his evil practices of secretprinting. I know not how or why it was, but more than once he wasabsent visiting the minister at Kingston; and once, that same Welshman,Master Penry, whom I had met in Oxford, came to our house and had a longconference there, and left behind him certain papers which my mastercarefully locked away.
And one night, after I had been late out, when I came back, I spied alight in the cellar below, and heard the rumble of a press there, andknew that, cost what it would, my master was once more risking hisliberty and fortune at the bidding of his bishop-hating employers.
"Master," said I, boldly marching below, to where he stood busilyworking his press, "since I am to be your son-in-law, I may as wellshare your peril. Have I your leave?"
He looked half-vexed and half-contented; and declared that what he did,though it might be against the rules, was yet a righteous thing, and hewanted not my help unless I thought the same. This tract, said he,could it but get abroad, would save God's Church from much evil thatthreatened her; and to that end he was willing to risk his liberty inprinting it.
Now, whether he was right or wrong, I was not scholar enough tounderstand all the tract said concerning the state of the Church. Butsince no one wished to see the Church improved more than I, I was readyto believe my master's cause a righteous one, and told him as much.
And having once lent myself to the work, it suited my humour to carry iton without question, though not without sundry misgivings as to how farit sorted with my loyalty to my Queen to be thus flying in the face of adecree of her honourable Star Chamber.
But before this labour was done, a new task fell into my hands. For oneday, as I worked at my case, I heard a voice at the door say:
"Is it here I find my Hollander, like Pegasus clipped of his wings, yetgiving wings to the thoughts of the wise, so that they may fly abroad,as, in sooth, shall presently mine own burning numbers? Salute me, myonce servant, now honoured to be called my friend, and the goal of mymuse-sped wanderings."
It was the poet. But how changed from the gay popinjay I knew on the_Misericorde_!
He was so lean that the skin scarce held together over his bones; hisface was shrunk and nipped with hunger; a ragged beard hung from hischin. His attire was the same as he had worn when last I saw him, butso tattered and dirty and threadbare that it was a marvel to me it didnot fall to pieces before my eyes. The great ruff drooped brown anddank upon his shoulders. The gay shirt and doublet hung like greysackcloth on his limbs. His shoes flapped in fragments about his feet,and the empty scabbard at his belt swung like the shreds of a worn ropebetween his legs.
He was a sorry spectacle in truth, and but for his unchanged speech Imight have looked at him long ere I knew him.
"I am come," said he, when I had greeted him and bidden him sit andrest, "like a dove from the ends of the earth, yet with not so much asan olive leaf to fill my mouth withal. My Hollander, even the poet,friend of the immortals, can eat. Even the honey on Mount Athossatisfieth not; and nectar leaveth its void. As a sign of peace andgood-will, my humble comrade, I will eat whatsoever bread and meat youmay place before me; for i
n truth my teeth have lost their cunning, andhe who late warbled elegiacs hath almost forgot how to swallow a cup ofvulgar sack."
'Twas not long before with Jeannette's aid I set before him a meal thevery sight of which filled his eyes with tears, and set his hand atrembling. It seemed kinder not to stand by while he devoured it; yeteven in the adjoining room we could hear him, betwixt his mouthfuls,talk of Hebe and Ganymede, and utter brave speeches about Venus who everhaunted his wandering steps, and in mortal guise waited on her favouredservant. By which I understood he was struck with the beauty of mysweet Jeannette; for the which I forgave him much.
But when, after a little, we returned to see how he fared, he was fallenforward on the table in a deep sleep, from which it never even rousedhim when I lifted him in my arms and laid him on a clean straw bed inthe corner of the office. And for twenty hours by the clock did hesleep there, never turning a limb, till it seemed a charity to rouse himand give him more food.
Then when he found himself refreshed and filled, he gave us his news;which, shorn of all its flourishes, was shortly this.
After he had written his letter from Chester, he was detained many aweek in custody as a vagabond and a lunatic. And at last, shaking thedust of that city from his feet, he tramped to the next, where a likefate awaited him. And so, tossed about, like a drift log on theunpitying ocean, he had found himself cast up at last in London; where,remembering me, he had with many a rebuff sought me out, and here hewas.
When he discovered that the maiden--his once mistress and incomparableswan--was of our household, he fell into strange raptures concerning theindulgences of the gods towards their favourites--meaning himself. Andthe sight of her, and her goodness to him--for with her own purse shefound him a lodging not far off--called up from him many a burst ofpoetic fire, such as it grieves me to think cannot now be recovered.More than that, he told us a little of Ludar, whom, as has been said, heencountered at Chester.
More yet, he had one piece of news which was of no little import to themaiden and us all, as you shall hear.
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